"As the Founders warned, there is an ineluctable conflict between Liberty and equality. You cannot make men equal without taking away their Freedom. The Founders devised a Constitution designed to thwart what they called 'wicked schemes' to take wealth from one segment of the nation and distribute it to another. The reason prosperity took hold in America is because of inequality. The great American businesses that have so enriched us all came about because of great concentrations of private wealth, not though government-engineered equality. All of us live richer lives precisely because of the unequal distribution of wealth. Inequality, for lack of a better word, is good. Inequality makes the world go around." --columnist Jon N. Hall

"As predictable and repetitive as Obama's economic speeches are, his capacity for audacity shows ever increasing signs of creativity. ... Did you hear the anger in his voice? Did you hear him again blame Bush's 'two wars' and 'tax cuts for the wealthy' for the economic and debt problems into which he has injected steroids? ... Almost three years into his term, did you hear him accept any ownership of his policies? Did he apologize for nearly doubling the national debt? For pushing (and preserving) unemployment to stratospheric levels? For creating so much business fear and uncertainty that he's given the stock market a multiple personality disorder? No, no, no and no. Obama is the guy who sucker punches you, kicks you when you fall down, stomps on your head, yells at you, and then summons a crowd of people and publicly castigates you for picking on him." --columnist David Limbaugh

"It is incredibly irresponsible for these super-millionaires to be calling for more taxes, because no matter how willing they are to pay more taxes themselves, the burden will likely fall on many people making a lot less money than they do. For one thing, if the tax discourages earning from higher income people or reduce their wealth it could hinder job creation, hence hurting non millionaire Americans." --Veronique de Rugy of the Cato Institute

"[Obama] went to Massachusetts to campaign against Scott Brown; Brown is now a senator. He went to New Jersey to campaign against Chris Christie, who's now governor. He went to Virginia to campaign against Bob McDonnell, who's now governor. He campaigned for the health-care plan extensively, it became less popular. He campaigned in 2010 for the Democrats, they were shellacked. He began, in a sense, his presidency flying to Copenhagen to get Chicago the Olympics; Chicago was the first city eliminated. There is no evidence that the man has the rhetorical powers that he is relying on." --columnist George Will

"It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay higher tax rates than somebody pulling in $50 million. Anybody who says we can't change the tax code to correct that, anyone who has signed some pledge to protect every single tax loophole so long as they live, they should be called out. ... And if they're pledged to keep that kind of unfairness in place, they should remember, the last time I checked the only pledge that really matters is the pledge we take to uphold the Constitution." --Barack Obama, who has done everything to undermine the Constitution

"This is not class warfare -- it's math. The money has to come from some place. If we're not willing to ask those who've done extraordinarily well to help America close the deficit ... the math says everybody else has to do a whole lot more, we've got to put the entire burden on the middle class and the poor." --Barack Obama, repeating his line about math vs. taxpayers

"George Washington grappled with the problem [of taxes]. He said, 'Towards the payment of debts, there must be revenue, and to have revenue, there must be taxes. And no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant.' But he understood that dealing with the debt is -- his choice of words -- 'always a choice of difficulties.' He also knew that public servants weren't elected to do what is easy; they weren't elected to do what was politically advantageous. It's our responsibility to put country before party. It's our responsibility to do what's right for the future. And that's what this debate is about." --Barack Obama, pushing for tax increases on the wealthy to fund his unconstitutional spending bonanza that Washington would find an abomination

"More than anyone else, these millionaires and billionaires benefitted from Bush tax cuts and contributed $3 trillion to our deficit, to help plunge this nation into a financial hole. A balanced approach to reduce our deficit means those who have benefitted the most from policies that created our deficit should also help solve our deficit." --Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

"There are times where -- until Nancy Pelosi is speaker again -- I'd like to work my way around Congress." --Barack Obama lamenting to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that "we live in a democracy, and at the end of the day, I can't do this all by myself under our democratic system."

"If Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House. There is a less-volatile reaction in the CBC because nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president." --Rep. Emanuel Clever (D-MO), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, admitting to racist reasons for not challenging the White House

"You look at any serious budget expert's analysis of the situation, taxes have to go up. So at what point do Republicans say, okay, we agree that taxes have to go up, and here's what we'll agree to? ... So what's wrong with raising taxes for that crowd so they're paying the same on their overall income as a middle class family? I mean, what's wrong with raising taxes on just that sliver of the rich?" --CNN's Christine Romans

"If Democrats are supposed to cut entitlements, aren't Republicans going to have to give at all on the idea of tax increases? ... But we saw in the debt fight in the summer, Republicans would not give on taxes. So if that's the case, then Washington is just going to be mired, going nowhere yet again." --NBC's David Gregory

"[Florida] is full of conservatives and crazy old people -- right wing extremist wackos and prehistoric reptiles that you can't kill, basically, the Tea Party!" --Angry Left Air America radio-talk-show host Randi Rhodes

"People often ask me what advice I would give the White House about various things. Today I was mulling over election results from New York and Nevada while thinking about that very question. What should the White House do now? One word came to mind: Panic." --Democrat strategist James Carville

"As I watch the Republican debates, I realize that we are on the brink of a crazy person running our nation. I ... shudder at the thought of one of these creationism-loving, global-warming-denying, immigration-bashing, Social-Security-cutting, clean-air-hating, mortality-fascinated, Wall-Street-protecting Republicans running my country." --James Carville

"The Republicans in Washington always say the same thing. Any tax on any upper-income person is bad because they're job creators. It's an insult to those people. They don't mind being asked to pay their fair share." --Bill Clinton

"If you were running the police department of any urban area in this country, you would expend more resources going after serious criminals than after jaywalkers. [The Department of Homeland Security] is doing the immigration equivalent of the same thing." --Cecilia Muno, White House director of intergovernmental affairs, comparing illegal immigrants to "jaywalkers"

"But who are the terrorists? Are we the terrorists or are they the terrorists? Two wrongs don't make a right. ... They flew the plane in, but we caused it. Because we were bombing them and they told us to stop." --singer Tony Bennett when asked how to deal with the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center

"Just to put it in perspective, the breezy $447 billion price tag for the Pass My Jobs Bill jobs bill is about 20 times higher than the most recent Greek government deficit currently threatening the stability of the entire Eurozone. Indeed, Greece's projected 2011 deficit -- $24 billion at last count -- is little more than half of just one of Obama's boutique, niche 'green jobs' programs. As Churchill almost said, never in the field of human con tricks has so much been owed by so many to so little effect." --columnist Mark Steyn

"I think the president has become a pyromaniac in a field of straw men." --Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

"Rick Perry got a lot of static for suggesting that Ben Bernanke was guilty of treason. Even I wouldn't go that far. Still, I did find myself trying to figure out the difference between being the chairman of the Federal Reserve and a garden-variety counterfeiter. The best I could come up with is that each man prints basically worthless money, and both men get to serve lengthy terms, but only one of them serves his in prison." --columnist Burt Prelutsky

"The White House set up an Internet site called Attack Watch asking people to report all criticisms of President Obama. They want to know every nasty remark. The next day the servers crashed from all the traffic, and that was just from the Democrats in New York." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"President Obama says his new jobs bill will create over 1.9 million jobs -- and up to 50 of them will be right here in America." --comedian Jay Leno

"We're home alone. There's no adult in charge." --Larry Summers, former director of Obama's White House National Economic Council, as quoted in Confidence Men, Ron Suskind's newly released book about the Obama economic team

web posted September 19, 2011

"When President Obama outlined his $450 billion jobs plan in a speech before Congress last week, he promised it would all be 'paid for,' and assured us he would present another plan outlining how he planned to do so. ... So much for the 'balanced approach' Obama was so fond of during the debt ceiling debate. The administration will cover the cost of the spending in its new jobs proposal solely by increasing taxes. ... Sound familiar? Recall this line from Obama's speech last week: 'This isn't political grandstanding. This isn't class warfare. This is simple math.' Republicans chuckled when he said that. And now the administration has shown why their laughter was warranted." --National Review's Andrew Stiles

"President Obama's jobs program calls for cuts in both sides of the payroll tax. That tax finances Social Security and Medicare. Social Security and Medicare are already taking in less money than they need to pay retirees. So they will have to cash in more of the Treasury IOUs left behind when previous surpluses were used to finance general expenditures. But the Treasury is also already running a deficit, a trillion dollars-plus. So it will have to borrow more in the capital markets in order to pay back the Social Security and Medicare funds. Unless Obama makes up the lost revenue by changing the tax code. But then money will be withdrawn from the economy in the form of higher taxes so it can be put back into the economy through the payroll-tax cut. Somehow that's supposed to stimulate the economy." --Freeman editor Sheldon Richman

"The White House's proposed means of paying for the 'jobs bill' the president called on Congress to adopt last week really sheds light on the cynicism and confusion at the heart of the president's new campaign theme. In order to be able to insist that he is proposing ideas but Republicans are unwilling to act, the president will apparently propose exactly the same set of massive tax increases that even Democrats in a Democratically-controlled Congress were unwilling to consider in the midst of the Obamacare debate in 2009. ... If telling voters you're unable to do your job were a wise re-election strategy, this might be a clever way to do it. But it isn't." --Yuval Levin of the Ethics and Public Policy Center

"The fact that a mere seven years after being attacked by Muslims, we elected a guy who spent his early years in Islamic schools in Indonesia; his most formative years being raised in Hawaii by white socialists and tutored by a black communist; and his adulthood, attending a black racist church in Chicago, while hanging around with unrepentant radical terrorists, strongly suggests that America should have had its head examined." --columnist Burt Prelutsky

"Many people think that when the government takes payroll tax from their paychecks, it goes to something like a savings account. Seniors who collect Social Security think they're just getting back money that they put into their 'account.' Or they think it's like an insurance policy -- you win if you live long enough to get more than you paid in. Neither is true. Nothing is invested. The money taken from you was spent by government that year. Right away. There's no trust fund. The plan is unsustainable." --columnist John Stossel

"Americans might listen to someone who calls Social Security a 'Ponzi scheme,' if he goes on to explain that what he means is that it cannot deliver the benefits it promises without significant reforms. But someone who seems eager to get the federal government out of the business of ensuring retirement security altogether will find a less receptive audience." --National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru

"Regardless of whether you believe the Social Security system, as now structured, satisfies the precise elements of a Ponzi scheme, you have to admit that if it had been correctly designed and administered, it would not be approaching insolvency and threatening our liberty and prosperity." --columnist David Limbaugh

"This is the bill that Congress needs to pass. ... No games. No politics. No delays." --Barack Obama, gamer and hardball politico

"[M]y job as president of the United States is not to worry about my job." --Barack Obama, who plans to spend $1 billion campaigning to keep his job

"Now, my hope is that when we are on the other side of it, folks will look back and say, 'You know, he wasn't a bad captain of the ship.'" --Barack Obama

"I urge reasonable Republicans to resist the voices of the Tea Party and others who would oppose this legislation and [instead] root for our economy. We must not continue to bow to the Tea Party Republicans willing to do anything to hurt the president. [We] cannot allow their radical agenda to crowd out America's jobs agenda." --Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) urging Congress to resist the Tea Party and pass Obama's jobs plan

"What I saw [Monday night] in that debate, Andrea, was Republican candidates for president worshiping at the altar of the Tea Party." --DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz

"What happened after 9/11 -- and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not -- was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. ... The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it." --New York Times columnist Paul Krugman

"But this is a war -- if you use the Bush terminology, the war against terrorism -- that has been very costly to this country and continues to be costly. ... And when the president goes before the Congress and has to beg for money to modernize schools and build science labs, that's just one small example of the cost we've paid with the obsessive focus on terrorism this last decade." --Newsweek's Eleanor Clift

"Occurs to me we are sitting 30 feet from Harry Truman's official White House portrait. Members of your base are asking: 'When are you going to get your Harry Truman on?'" --NBC's Brian Williams to Obama

"This is what [the Tea Party] wanted to hear from these candidates [in Monday night's GOP debate]. There are a lot of people around the country who are just like the folks in this room. And yet there are a huge number of people, an equal number of people, who I think were horrified by what they heard in this room. I was getting notes about they ought to keep these people locked up and not let them out. Don't let them do anything to the country." --CNN political analyst David Gergen

"I have to say that I think the president's team has been rather brilliant putting this [jobs bill] together. If the American Jobs Act -- that's a terrific name for it -- and he's paying for it by doing something that 70 percent of Americans believe would be the right thing to do, which is to raise taxes on the people who got us into this mess in the first place. So now the Republicans are going to have to vote to, if they want to kill this bill, they're gonna have to vote to give all the people that Americas can't stand more money. And in doing so they'll keep ordinary Americans from getting jobs." --former DNC head Howard Dean

"We want [Congress] to act now on this [Obama jobs] package. We're not in a negotiation to break up the package. And it's not an a la carte menu. It is a strategy to get this country moving." --former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod

"[T]he underlying activity of possessing or transporting an accessible and loaded weapon is itself dangerous and undesirable, regardless of the intent of the bearer since it may lead to the endangerment of public safety. Access to a loaded weapon on a public street creates a volatile situation vulnerable to spontaneous lethal aggression in the event of road rage or any other disagreement or dispute.... [I] hold that the state has an important government interest in promoting public safety and preventing crime. ... As crafted, the statute seeks to limit the use of handguns to self-defensive purposes -- a use which, although in this context existing outside the home, is nonetheless a hallmark of Heller -- rather than for some other use that has not been recognized as falling within the protections of the Second Amendment." --Southern District Judge Cathy Seibel of New York claiming that gun carry permits are not a constitutional right

"Has Obama ever grown even a potted plant, much less a business, a bank, a hospital or any of the numerous other institutions whose decisions he wants to control and override?" --economist Thomas Sowell

"Obama is like the guy in the bar who says, 'I'll stand drinks for everyone in the house,' and then adds, 'Those guys over there are going to pay for them.'" --political analyst Michael Barone

"L.A. is considering a ban on both plastic AND paper grocery bags. Fine. If I ever go shopping in L.A., my bags will be made from the fur of animals I killed myself." --former Senator Fred Thompson

"President Obama's speechwriter Jon Lovett resigned to pursue what he called a more fulfilling life in Los Angeles writing comedy. He helped write the stimulus bill, the health care law and the president's jobs plan. His work as a comedy writer in Washington is done." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"Government statistics show the U.S. economy created zero jobs in August. President Obama now says he's confident this month he can double that." --comedian Jay Leno

"A healthy 30-year-old young man" without health insurance ends up in the hospital. "Who's going to ... pay for that? ... Are you saying that society should just let him die?" --CNN's Wolf Blitzer with a "gotcha" question for Rep. Ron Paul in Monday's GOP debate. Paul's answer here.

"I'll put it this way, you don't deserve to keep all of [your money]. It's not a question of deserving, because what government is, is those things that we decide to do together." --Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) pontificating about the money you earn

"I have serious questions about the level of spending that President Obama proposed." --Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV)

"I am not supporting a repeal of tax cuts for the oil industry unless there are other industries that contribute. ... That offset is not going to fly, and he should know that. Maybe it's just for his election." --Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)

"When you start singling out certain industries [oil and gas], there's an unfairness to it. On the pay-fors, I have a problem." --Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK)

"Every dollar that is spent on the jobs bill ... is not going to be available to Congress to deal with the debt. And to me, the top priority of ours should be long-term major debt reduction." --Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT)

web posted September 12, 2011

"In everyday life, when you don't have something to say, you avoid the stage. In our nation's capital, by contrast, the world operates like the one Alice found behind the Looking Glass. That's a world where you have to run as hard as you can just to stay still. Which helps explain why President Obama will this week be addressing a joint session of Congress that doesn't really want to hear from him about a jobs plan that he doesn't really have." --columnist William McGurn

"[T]he campaign strategy Obama appears to have decided on -- portray Republican leaders as prisoners of the racist, Right-wing nutters from the Tea Party. They're to blame, the argument goes, for the gridlock in Washington because of their intransigence in the face of nice, reasonable Obama. The problem is that every smear and insult possible was thrown at the Tea Party in last year's mid-term elections but the grassroots movement still drove an historic Republican victory. It is also an obvious attempt to change the subject, moving discussion away from the economy by fixating on alleged racism or religious fundamentalism on the Right." --columnist Tony Harnden

"[T]o hurl the charge of racism without any evidence is slanderous. The GOP's opposition to Obama is rooted in profound political and philosophical disagreements; Republicans believe he is championing policies injurious to our nation. They may be wrong, but that does not make them malevolent. And to accuse people of racism in such a casual, promiscuous and reckless manner ultimately has the effect of draining the charge of its potency. Genuine racism is a terrible thing, which is why it should be reserved for the real deal rather than used as a clumsy and transparently ideological club." --Peter Wehner, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center

"Even President Obama recognizes that his administration's environmental agenda, with all its new rules and regulations, is a massive job killer that is destroying the economy. What is shameful about the President's decision to delay the new ozone rule is that it's all about improving his chances of being re-elected and has nothing to do with the economic damage that the rule would do. The fact that the President still wants to go ahead after he gets re-elected with a regulation that has been estimated to cost $1 trillion a year shows that he could care less about the U. S. economy and the millions of people who have lost their jobs." --Myron Ebell, Director of CEI's Center for Energy and Environment

"In addressing our economic challenges, Obama wants more government because he and people like him believe (often against the raw evidence) that more government works; that experts know better than consumers, merchants and the like the ways that they should behave. Obama progressives -- liberals as they called themselves before the term apparently became an embarrassment -- are offended by suggestions that economic decision making can be turned over to a loose herd of consumers who don't know a demand curve from a snowy egret's nest. Taxation is the great tool the progressives wield to make sure consumers know their place in the economic order." --columnist William Murchison

"In the last several years, we have pulled our country back from the brink, through a series of tough economic decisions. While we have come far, great challenges still face us." --Barack Obama

"Now, the fact is our economy is stronger when workers are getting paid good wages and good benefits. Our economy is stronger when we have broad base growth and broad-based prosperity. That's what unions have always been about, shared prosperity." --Barack Obama

"I think putting money back in the pockets of working families is the best way to get demand rising because that then means business is hiring. That means the government -- that means that the economy is growing." --Barack Obama

"The president must be bold. I agree that he must have a jobs program, he must create jobs. I'm talking about a jobs program of a trillion dollars or more. We've got to put Americans to work. That's the only way to revitalize this economy." --Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)

"You are the only folks keeping the barbarians from the gates. ... The other side has declared war on labor's house and it's about time we stand up!" --Joe Biden at the AFL-CIO Labor Day rally

"Some of these folks in Congress right now would love to see us as second-class citizens. Some of them in Congress right now of this Tea Party movement would love to see you and me ... hanging on a tree." --Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN)

"We gotta keep an eye on the battle that we face: A war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They got a war, they got a war with us and there's only going to be one winner. It's going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We're gonna win that war. ... President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let's take these son of a b-----s out and give America back to an America where we belong." --Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa Jr. (Barack Obama followed up these comments by saying he was "proud" of Hoffa and other union leaders.)

"I would [say it again] because I believe it. They've declared war on us. We didn't declare war on them, they declared war on us. We're fighting back. The question is, who started the war?" --Jimmy Hoffa, who stood by his remarks on three occasions

"This is a civil war struggle." --Jesse Jackson

"Tea Party activists have denied accusations that their movement is racist, and there is nothing intrinsically racist about opposing 'big government' or clean-energy legislation or health care reform. But it is clear that the movement is more appealing to people who are unsympathetic to blacks and who prefer a harder line on illegal immigration than it is to other Americans." --University of California San Diego professor Gary C. Jacobson

"[Obama] wants to speak before Congress because he recognizes that while there are things he can do without Congress, and he will do them, there are actions that need to be taken with Congress that require legislation to grow the economy and create jobs. And he wants to go to Congress, speak directly to members of Congress, and layout his proposals." --White House Press Secretary Jay Carney

"[W]hat is it about this president that has stripped away the veneer of respect that normally accompanies the office of the president? Why do Republicans think this president is unpresidential and should dare to request this kind of thing? It strikes me that it could be the economic times, it could be that he won so big in 2008 or it could be, let's face it, the color of his skin." --MSNBC's Richard Wolffe on Obama being asked to move his jobs speech to a night other than tonight's scheduled GOP presidential debate

"[T]he experience of the past two years has overwhelmingly confirmed what some of us tried to argue from the beginning: The deficits we're running right now -- deficits we should be running, because deficit spending helps support a depressed economy -- are no threat at all. ... [W]e should have a lot of job-creating spending on the part of the federal government... But what will Republicans agree to? That's easy: nothing. They will oppose anything Mr. Obama proposes, even if it would clearly help the economy -- or maybe I should say, especially if it would help the economy, since high unemployment helps them politically." --New York Times columnist Paul Krugman

"Adolescence, like retirement, is an invention of the modern age. If the extension of retirement into a multi-decade government-funded vacation is largely a function of increased life expectancy, the prolongation of adolescence seems to derive from the bleak fact that, without an efficient societal conveyor belt to move you on, it appears to be the default setting of huge swathes of humanity. It was striking, during the Hurricane Irene frenzy, to hear the Federal Emergency Management Agency refer to itself repeatedly as 'the federal family.' If Big Government is a 'family,' with the bureaucracy as its parents, why be surprised that the citizens are content to live as eternal adolescents?" --columnist Mark Steyn

"New statistics show the U.S. economy added zero jobs in August. The White House cautioned Americans not to read too much into those numbers. What numbers?" --comedian Jay Leno

"President Obama's uncle Omar vowed to call the White House after he was arrested for drunken driving last Sunday near Boston. You have to feel for the poor guy. He's sitting in jail and the only guy he can call for bail money is fourteen trillion dollars in debt." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"Maybe Obama was not even the person he was waiting for." --New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd

web posted September 5, 2011

"The debt stood at $10.6 trillion when Barack Obama took office in January 2009. Now, it's about $14.4 trillion. ... By the time Obama finishes his first term, he will have increased the national debt by somewhere in the $5 trillion-to-$6 trillion range -- more than Bush did in two terms. None of this is to say that George W. Bush had a good record on spending. He didn't, and he's fair game for criticism. But is it honest to condemn reckless spending in 'eight years of Republican rule' when Democrats controlled the Senate for four of those years and the House for two? Is it honest to talk about the 'cost' of the Bush tax cuts when federal revenues increased significantly while they were in effect? And is it honest to refer to Bush's ballooning deficits when deficits actually trended down for much of his presidency -- at least before Democrats won control of Congress? Of course Obama partisans would like to pin the president's troubles on Bush. But they should get their facts straight first." --columnist Byron York

"Obama doesn't meditate, cogitate, contemplate or deliberate about job creation, because he thinks he's already got it figured out. The only thing he's doing is strategizing how best to convince the people, against all their reason and instincts, that his failed policies will work if he keeps trying. Meanwhile, he continues to wreak havoc on the market with his onerous tax, regulatory and administrative policies. We know better than to fall for his promise to cut $10 billion through regulatory relaxation. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said the proposal was 'underwhelming,' and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the changes 'will not have a material impact on the economy.' Just more smoke and mirrors." --columnist David Limbaugh

"The vast uncertainties created by ObamaCare create a special problem. If employers knew that ObamaCare would add $1,000 to their costs of hiring an employee, then they could simply reduce the salaries they offer by $1,000 and start hiring. But, since it will take years to create all the regulations required to carry out ObamaCare, employers today don't know whether the ObamaCare costs that will hit them down the road will be $500 per employee or $5,000 per employee. Many businesses work their existing employees overtime or hire temporary workers, rather than get stuck with unknown and unknowable costs for expanding their permanent work force." --economist Thomas Sowell

"[T]here are interesting stories that you have to catch up with when you can, like a moving train. The Justice Department's raid on four Gibson guitar factories [over supposedly illegal wood] is in that category. The raid took place last Wednesday. ... [CEO Henry] Juszkiewicz says that the government of the country where [their] rosewood comes from certified it for export, and Gibson jumps through rather elaborate hoops before it buys the wood after it is imported to the U.S. ... One of the ironies, as you might expect, is that America is a trivial importer of rosewood from Madagascar and India. ... If nothing else, this incident illustrates the misguided priorities of the Obama administration. Harassing American businesses on frivolous grounds is not exactly what our economy needs at the moment. But the anti-business Obama administration just can't help itself." --blogger John Hinderaker

"What we went through, was the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and typically after financial recessions, financial crises like this, it takes a long time for the patient to heal. This is a situation where the economy essentially had a heart attack, and the patient lived, and the patient is getting better, but it's getting better very slowly." --Barack Obama

"All these ideas [for jobs] are ones that have been presented to Congress. We'll be putting out several other additional ideas. We've got to do it, unfortunately, at a time when money is tight. George Bush left us [a] $1 trillion deficit." --Barack Obama, blaming Bush

"My attitude is that my job is to present the best plans possible. Congress needs to act. If Congress does not act, then I'm going to be going on the road and talking to folks, and this next election very well may end up being a referendum on whose vision of America is better." --Barack Obama, blaming Congress

"The Tea-Party driven Republicans -- it's made it very difficult to get progressive things done for this Congress." --Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), blaming the Tea Party

"Government and politics are two different things. ... So don't be confused, as frustrated as you are about politics. Don't buy into this notion that somehow government is what's holding us back." --Barack Obama, blaming the voters

"Since the end of last year's hurricane season, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been working with the nation's entire emergency management team to get ready for this year's hurricane season. That team includes the entire federal family, state, local and tribal governments, the faith-based and non-profit communities, and the private sector." --McClatchy Newspapers op-ed by Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Jack Hayes, director of the National Weather Service, using a talking point from the White House

"When we add all of these risk factors together, we can say with a great deal of confidence that in the future, there will be more and more events like Irene. We can comfort ourselves by saying that this particular storm was not necessarily caused by global warming. Or we can acknowledge the truth, which is that we are making the world a more dangerous place and, what's more, that we know it." --The New Yorker's Elizabeth Kolbert

"How do you maintain hope? Because sometimes I read about the climate, and I just sort of despair, or I want to throw in the towel. And I wonder since you're out there every day, you're here talking to me now, how do you avoid that?" --MSNBC's Chris Hayes to environmental activist Bill McKibben

"People are scared. We have to be on target in terms of the information that we're giving. There is comfort in knowing. There is more fear when there is ignorance. Our job is to fight fear by telling them what they need to know." --NBC's Today Show co-host Ann Curry

"[I]t is clear that the recovery from the crisis has been much less robust than we had hoped." --Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke

"America is imperiled not because we're broke but because Americans are being fed continuous lies by Fox News and [The Wall Street Journal] editorial page." --former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich

"The best ideas, I've always said, in education are never going to come from me or frankly from anyone else in Washington." --Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (Finally -- somebody in this administration who can tell the truth!)

"My generation watched Bull Connor turning the hose on civil rights demonstrators and we went, 'Whoa! How gross and evil is that?' My generation asked old people, 'Explain to me again why it is okay to discriminate against people because their skin color is different?' And when they couldn't really answer that question with integrity, the change really started. ... [W]e still have racism, God knows, but it's so different now, it's so much better. And we have to win the conversation on climate. In some quarters is has become almost politically incorrect [sic] to use the word." --populist potentate of eco-theology Al Gore comparing present day warming skeptics to racists

"When we see some of the opposition to [ObamaCare], we really ought to go back and remember the opposition to the civil rights law in the '60s to see what we've come through and to see that the fight's worth it. I don't want to say that the health care law is as important as the civil rights law. But there really are some analogies." --Jay Angoff, Health and Human Services bureaucrat

"[A]s I close, I close with the recognition that [MLK] is standing, Lincoln is seated. Lincoln remembered for signing the Declaration of Independence. Daddy being remembered as standing up for truth and standing up for justice and standing up for righteousness and standing up for peace and standing up for freedom. Daddy is now standing on the National Mall in our nation's capital." --Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., the dedication of the new memorial for her father in Washington, DC (Lincoln, of course, signed the Emancipation Proclamation, not the Declaration of Independence.)

"Just 17 percent of Americans said they have a positive overall view of the federal government, compared to 63 percent who have a negative view. ... [P]ublic sentiment toward the federal government is at its lowest point in eight years. Apart from a slight bump following Obama's election in 2008, it's been on a steady decline, which has resumed now that people don't seem to be as 'hopeful' about 'change they can believe in.'" --columnist Andrew Stiles

"Washington D.C.'s earthquake prompted an immediate evacuation of all federal office buildings. No one's hurt. The government came to a complete halt at twelve o'clock noon and by sundown the United States was debt-free and the budget was balanced." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"Hurricane Irene wasn't that bad. In fact, it was downgraded to a tropical storm. Even our hurricanes are getting downgraded. Maybe Irene owed money to China too." --comedian Jay Leno

"I don't see the point of being a prop for another of the president's speeches asking for more failed stimulus spending and more subsidies for his pet projects. The president needs to stop the speeches, get out of his office and away from all the White House academics and start talking to real people out there. They're the ones who are going to create the jobs, not White House paper-pushers and bureaucrats." --Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) on why he plans to skip this week's speech